1. BigSkyEarth: Opportunities for LSST in Europe http://bigskyearth.eu Dejan Vinkovic dejan@iszd.hr

2. astronomy & earth observation dependent on ‘’big data’’ (developments in computer science, statistics, and data analysis) Big-Sky-Earth is a Horizon 2020 funded COST network designed to bring these three communities together, boosting communication within and between the communities, and identifying common solutions to challenges faced in research and industry across them. The Action wants to set the ground for a long- term networking across the earth-space domain

3. -brings together experts from across the disciplines of astronomy, earth observation and big dana … -… through conferences, short scientific projects, training schools, collaborative work, and preparation for larger projects What Does Big-Sky-Earth Do?

4. Researchers and experts from 25 countries (more to join): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, fYR Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherland, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, United Kingdom + institutions from: Armenia ( Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory ) South Africa ( Trent University ) USA ( University of Washington ) Canada ( University of the Western Cape ) Who Is Involved In Big-Sky-Earth? We welcome participants from both public and private sector!

5. Shared challenges: data tsunami Digital curation and data access store, maintain & preserve huge amounts of data large multidimensional & highly interrelated datasets = paradigm change: push the computing to the data ESA’s G-POD Visualization visualizing large quantities of data with: low signal-to-noise ratio, high dynamic range, multidimensional parameter space, multi-layered time-dependent,... Google Earth Engine Adaptation to new high performance computing (HPC) technologies heterogeneous supercomputing environments new programming techniques for GPUs and cloud computing GPUs as numerical co-processors Training of a new generation of scientists astroinformatics, geoinformatics, bioinformatics natural sciences + IT/CS = exploration with statistics New books and online courses

6. Meetings: -Working Groups meetings: July (Bucharest), October (Helsinki) -Conference: 24-25 Oct. 2016 (Sorento, Italy) co-organized with the IAU Symposium 325 on Astroinformatics -Action Workshop in Sopron (Hungary), probably in the beginning of February Upcoming events Training School in astro- and geo-informatics (~30 participants) -2 nd Training School (Cambridge – British Arctic Survey) on April 3-8, 2017 -Topic – visualizations of Big Data (?) Short-Term Scientific Missions: small grants (up to 1500EUR) for exchange of experts between countries (from COST country to UW) Three broad initiatives emerged: -propoals for the European Training Network (H2020) -Big Data astro-geo-physics of meteor plasma -a science case for a stratospheric airship platform (at about 20km altitude)

7. Join us – simply register at http://bigskyearth.eu For more information contact us at: info@bigskyearth.eu dejan@iszd.hr